"Hey, I wonder where Zel went.."
"You always wonder where Zel is, Ameria. Hmmmmm..."
"Are you thinking, Gourry?"
"Yeah.. I'm really wondering.. how these pickles taste."
"....pickles?", inquired Lina, as she was waking from her sleepy stupor.
"Lina! You're awake!"
"And I feel like hell.. what happened?"
"You got poisoned."
"Again?"
"Yep."
"Damn. Well, what's this about pickles?"
"Kyvin remembered most of the scroll, and translated some. The only part he translated before he died was about pickles, though."
"How did he die?"
"Mazoku."
"It still alive?"
"Nope."
"Gourry stabbed it in the crotch."
"Ameria!!"
"Well, let me see this pickle recipe..."
"Okay.", Gourry said, and handed over the papers to Lina.
Leafing through the papers, she said, "Hmmm... sounds tasty. Is this all?"
"Yeah.. that's all he translated."
"Then what's that paper behind you?", Lina asked, pointing to a piece of paper blowing through the hallway.
"Uhm.. I dunno."
"Well, this piece completes the pickle recipe.. so it has to be on something else."
"I wonder what."
"YOU IDIOTS! STOP SITTING THERE AND GET IT BEFORE IT BLOWS AWAY!!!!"
And they're off.
"What the hell is all this?!", Zelgadiss yelled, pointing to the huge magic circles Xelloss was drawing.
"It's a secret."
Zelgadiss didn't trust Xelloss. He didn't like him, either.. every moment more he spent with him just made him want to beat the shit out of him. But every time he felt like refusing all that was about to happen, he remembered Selyan, and could hold on to his anger a little bit longer. Had Zelgadiss been rational, he would've realized what he had thought earlier that had given him such resolve - that Xelloss was getting him out of the way. But as much as he looked like it, Zelgadiss did not have a heart of stone. He still hurt from Selyan, and all he could think of at the moment was being human again. It never occured to him that Xelloss might be trying to get him out of the way.
Not that he was, mind you.
After a half-hour of continual Raywings and Levitation spells, they finally managed to get the piece of paper, which had flown out the window. They set down in the forest where they had found it and rested. They all needed it - Lina and Ameria for their continual use of heavy magics, and Gourry, for keeping up with them on foot.
"Huff.. huff.. huff.. so what is it, Lina?"
"Hopefully a jellyfish recipe... "
"No.. it's the rest of what Xelloss didn't read about the chimaeric condition."
"What does it say?"
"Hmmm.. Ameria, you pay more attention to Zel than either of us. Can you answer me a question?"
"Probably."
"Did Zel ever try to cure himself using the magics from the Mithril Sphere that we got awhile back?"
"Of course! First thing! It didn't work, though. He was really sad about that."
"That's weird."
"Why?"
"According to this, it was supposed to."
"What?!"
"It's what he's got written down right here."
"Well, maybe he didn't do it right."
"There's only one way to do these things."
".....well, what went wrong? Why didn't it work?"
"I don't know. But you know what this reminds me of?"
"What?"
"Rezo."
"Oh no....."
"What?"
"Gourry, do you remember why Rezo couldn't cure his blindness?"
"Uhm... he couldn't read the spellbooks?"
"NO, you doof! It was because the Dark Lord Shabranigdo was sealed into his eyes!"
"What?! He was?!!"
"OF COURSE HE WAS!! WHERE WERE YOU?!"
"Well, I kept asking for you to explain it, but you never did.."
"I did, fifteen times! At that diner!"
"Which one?"
"Uhm.. guys, I hate to interrupt, but if what you say is true, then would that be why Zel isn't able to get rid of his form? Because a piece of Shabranigdo is in his body?"
"There's only one way to find out."
"How's that?"
"To ask Rezo himself."
Rezo didn't enjoy being interrupted from the spirit world. Ameria didn't particularly enjoy summoning him up on the Sword of Light, either. However, she had gotten good enough at Shamanism that she was able to do it. Rezo's head appeared like a hologram out of the blade of the Sword of Light, rather annoyed.
"What is it, Lina Inverse? Have you not meddled enough with me?"
"We need to know something."
"I shall not tell you."
"We won't let you back to the spirit world if you don't."
"Khhhh...." Rezo looked extremely pissed off. "One question. That's all you get."
"You did it, didn't you? Your family is the keepers of the pieces of Shabranigdo, so when you saw someone roughly the same as you wanting a great deal of power quickly, you gave it to him, didn't you? It's the same way you got your piece of Shabranigdo, isn't it?"
"Not that question. I will not answer that question."
"Why?! You said we had one question!! Why won't you answer it?!"
"You would never understand."
"Try me."
"TRY you, Lina Inverse?! No, you are trying me. Ask your question."
"Look, Rezo, it's important.. I realize you must've suffered, bu-"
"You REALIZE how much I suffered?! Ohhh no you could never realize. You could never understand. You don't know what it's like to live for centuries on a gift you never wanted!!! Mating with your children and their children and their children'd children just to make someone to pass your burden on to so you could DIE! Then learning that you had to unload others 'gifts' once they died before you could unload your own! No, Lina Inverse, you could never realize how much I suffered. All I wanted to do was destroy the pieces within me and others, and I needed Zanaffar for that. All I wanted to do was see the world and die. But I didn't want to take anybody with me."
"So you did it?"
"YES! I instilled within that child a piece of Shabranigdo! Are you happy?!"
"Then.. with the philosophers stone destroyed.. how would you ressurect the piece of Shabranigdo?"
"There are other ways.. the Mazoku know... the Eye of Siefied, for instance, will melt away human skins and reveal the piece underneath, triggering his ressurection."
"Then... oh god, Xelloss has been trying to do that all along!"
"XELLOSS?!"
"You know him, Rezo?"
"Yes, he came to me once.. stop him. Stop him now. Don't let him go through with it."
"Why? I mean, besides the obvious."
"Because he and his Lord, the Beastmaster, are possibly the most devious Mazoku out there.. and if he's doing what I think he's doing.. you have to stop him."
Several miles away, Zelgadiss shrieked and tried breaking the magical barriers which Xelloss had drawn around him. The Eye of Siefied made him feel like his skin was melting off.
Xelloss grinned. Everything was going according to plan.